On July 23 one of my generation’s greatest troubadours, Bill Morrissey, left this earth at the age of 59. I’ve spent the last 24 hours since hearing the news trying to find the words to express the feelings of loss that always seem to hold the hand of regret, the warp-speed passing of time, and the ever-present fear of change before finally circling around to gratitude for a life that made us better.

When I started Performing Songwriter magazine back in 1993, I was blessed with the opportunity, as a fan, to stumble into the New England folk world at one of its most fertile times, and, shockingly, be invited to sit at their table. It was a community that was crazy talented and a family that treasured its time together.

It was the world where the pre-Grammy Tracy Chapman and Shawn Colvin had honed their craft; where Rounder Records supported and signed rising talents like Ellis Paul, Vance Gilbert and Diane Zeigler; a time when Dar Williams was whipping up a buzz with her first indie project, as were other girls-with-guitars like Catie Curtis, Barbara Kessler and Cosy Sheridan; Marty Sexton was wowing first-time listeners with that voice; and it was the moment The Story’s Jonatha Brooke and Jennifer Kimball crossed over into the majors when their second album was signed to Elektra. It was a time when Christine Lavin would hold September songwriter retreats on Martha’s Vineyard and these young writers would hang out on a porch and write songs with the likes of Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk and Shel Silverstein, or be entertained by Cheryl Wheeler, Patty Larkin, John Gorka and Cliff Eberhardt simply being themselves.

And in the center of that rich and fertile space of creativity stood Bill Morrissey. He was revered. He was studied. He was a kind and patient teacher of the supreme importance of words. Of tradition. Of art with purpose. Of writing truth instead of fact. But mostly he was a beloved friend.

So that’s the place I circled over since hearing the sad news. Back to that time of big dreams and endless possibilities; of community and creativity; of youth and lightness.

All of you who were his friends, family and colleagues, please know you’re in my heart. From my vantage point as a lucky witness, I saw Bill make you better in a multitude of ways. And I also saw you fill his life with friendship and song.

Below is a beautiful interview with Bill by Scott Alarik from Issue 5 of Performing Songwriter. I find it a perfect tribute to a first-class songwriter who will live on in our hearts, and his art that will live on in our lives.

Folk’s Literate Songwriter

by Scott Alarik

No songwriter gets quite the press attention that Bill Morrissey does. Many get more, to be sure, than the New England native, whose career has been a classic slow build. Some get more effusive praise, though not too many these days. But Morrissey’s austere, brilliantly crafted ballads, vividly human song-sketches and smartly silly ditties garner a different sort of plaudit.

As all singer-songwriters flourishing today, Morrissey is inevitably compared to ‘60s and ‘70s folk performers. In his case, it is most often to Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and John Prine. But nearly as often, he is compared to novelists like Raymond Carver and poets like Robert Frost. The rather unmusical word “literate” crops up all the time in critiques of his work. Rolling Stone praised him as “a true naturalist storyteller … conveying wisdom with absolute economy and focused fire.” The Boston Globe and the Boston Phoenix both praised his “novelist’s eye” for detail. Entertainment Weekly said his writing was “as evocative as black-and-white photographs” before flatly calling him “the best folk songwriter working today.”

“It was kind of what I was hoping for all long,” Morrissey said, speaking of his frequent comparisons to fiction writers. “I think I’ve been influenced by fiction more than anything else, more than songwriters or poetry. I guess a lot of what I’m trying to do is the same thing they are doing. I want to use words well.

“What I really strive for is no excess. I try to say exactly what I mean, say it in a believable way, and get out. I never try to write down to the listener, I think the listener has a brain and can understand. It’s the old axiom of showing, not telling. That’s what good fiction does, that’s what good lyrics do. There are certain things you don’t have to tell, that are implied because of the situation, the condition or the scene. And if you do say it, you’re just stepping on your own toes, you’re over-writing.

“I worry a lot about that, about overloading, gilding the lily. You can actually become rococo; you know, too much information, overstating. I guess that probably started with listening to Mississippi John Hurt, how he would sometimes not sing a line, just play it. You realize certain things can be said with just the music, and my whole approach is to keep everything as spare as possible.”

As many fiction writers also say, Morrissey finds his characters fleshing out to the point that they often take over the storyline. He is so intent on making them believable that they can alter his original vision of the song.

“It’s like a Polaroid being developed, and suddenly you realize, ‘Oh, that’s what he looks like, that’s what kind of a guy he is.’ My characters fool me. I don’t know who they are when I start out, just a vague idea. A lot of times, halfway through a song, I’ll go ‘No, wait a second, he wouldn’t do that.’ Which is really a drag when you’ve got a great rhyme for what he wouldn’t do.”

It is the simple, so-real moments and telling details in Morrissey’s songs which so often invite comparisons to fiction writers and make his work so convincing and powerful. A man watching his home— and whole life— burning to the ground, absently focuses on trying to keep his cigarette dry in the night mist. In “Birches” he turns the simple act of deciding between stoking a fire with fast-burning birch or the slower, longer-lasting oak into a brilliant consideration of love’s wild but fleeting passions versus it’s cooler, steadier fires. Even in his buoyant, whimsical songs, his keen word-sculpting is clear: “I drink for ballast, I sing for fun/ and I love my baby when her hair’s undone,” he sings in the gently sexy, giddy love song “Ellen’s Tune.” In “Cold, Cold Night,” a devotional love song set against a stark winter landscape, he sings “A maple branch clicks up above you/ the mailbox leans in the snow/ the light on her face from the grocery behind you/ tells you she’s one you can never let go.”

Best of all for Morrissey is the attention he is receiving from novelists and short-story writers themselves. Robert Olmsted actually wrote him into one of his novels and wrote of Morrissey, “To me, he is New England’s own bluesman—not hot and humid delta blues, but deep snow and sharp pine blues.”

That pleases Morrissey because it comes from a novelist he respects, but also because, after all, he is a folk singer. His musical roots are very important to him, and he wants people to know how deeply they reach into the fertile earth of traditional blues and the populist troubadour traditions of Woody Guthrie.

“I would never call myself a bluesman, you know, but I did learn how to fingerpick listening to John Hurt and Skip James. So there’s a little of that in my music, not consciously but because it’s the way I learned it. I think the similarity is there in terms of subject matter and feeling, too. A lot of these people I write about are down and out; it’s just the northern version of down and out. The emotion is still the same, and I’m just expressing it as honestly as I can, which is exactly what the guys in the delta were doing.”

He was quick to add that his economy of words owes as much to folk tradition, too. Speaking of the master of the Delta blues, who Morrissey has written into two songs, he said, “Robert Johnson’s lyrics were just killer, great, sparse, to the point and evocative. The emotion comes charging right through and, again, he doesn’t tell you, he shows you; he makes you feel it. That’s a hard thing to do. It’s so much easier to just tell people how they’re supposed to feel. But even if you show them, you have to do it in a way they feel. That’s the object of the game.”

The characters he brings to life are often honest, simple folk struggling with the hardscrabble life of northern New England; doing their best but no match for brute circumstance. Love holds out the hope of redemptive grace—or at least quiet release from grinding daily life—but often withers with age, sags beneath the weight of lives that cannot outrun, outwork or outfight careless fate.

On stage, Morrissey is a laid-back delight. His voice is a deep, deceptively melodic growl that has been fondly called “wrinkled.” His guitar is spare, pulsing and pretty, anchored so firmly to his clear-cut melodies and austere lyrics that the deftness of his style escapes many.

Speaking of his uniquely leathery vocal style, Morrissey said, “Luckily, I was such a bad singer I couldn’t imitate anybody. I was just ready to buy a note any way I could. If I could have bribed my way to a b-flat, I would have done it. I had to find a way to get the songs over, and listened particularly to people who had funky voices—like the way Dave Van Ronk can do a Joni Mitchell song; how a rough voice can convey something like that. And that’s where whatever style I have now comes from.”

People who have become fans by hearing his songs on record or radio often come to his shows braced for a rich but chill evening. They are happily surprised by what his early New England fans valued as much, if not a little more, than his songwriting. Morrissey is a very funny man, generously sprinkling his shows with sharp asides, shrewd topical barbs and a wise, inspired silliness. His sure, droll showmanship is a prize he won during years playing beat-up bars and timber-rough taverns from Portsmouth, New Hampshire to frozen northern Maine.

He has described the humor set amidst his largely serious songs as “like the comic relief in a horror movie.” He says it was developed purely as self-defense. “In the beginning, I didn’t have a lot of songs, and they weren’t very good, and I didn’t do covers. So when people screamed, “Hey, what’s your day job?’ I started heckling back. I’d do a lot of improv stuff about what was going on around the club. I realized that, even if you weren’t the greatest musician, if you could entertain people, they’d hire you back. It became a way to break it up between the serious songs, because I’m really top-heavy with serious stuff. I realized that if I could relax people, let them laugh a little bit, they’d be more receptive to the next serious song. And I just like making people laugh.”

Curiously enough for someone so applauded for his lyrical intelligence, literate imagery and contemporary writing, Morrissey’s first Grammy nomination came [in 1994] in the “Best Traditional Folk” category for his lovely, front-porch-friendly collaboration of folk and cover songs with fellow songwriter Greg Brown called Friend of Mine. [Note: He also garnered a Grammy nod with 1999’s Songs of Mississippi John Hurt.] It actually contains few truly traditional songs, but increasingly Morrissey is becoming something of an advocate for the oft-neglected American folk song. In what he sees as an increasingly pop-centered songwriter scene, he wants people to know that he is part of the folk tradition. It was for that reason he signed the notes to his breakthrough album Inside “Bill Morrissey, folksinger.” And that zeal fired his work on Friend of Mine.

After sternly denying he is getting soap-boxy, Morrissey said, “I think it’s very important for musicians to know where the music came from. I mean, you’re just part of a long line in a constantly evolving form. I guess I just started seeing some of the younger musicians not paying attention and not curious. To me, that was just baffling. I mean, Charlie Parker could quote from Coleman Hawkins, he didn’t spring out of thin air, and he was the best. The people who are the best always have that background; they know what came before. It gives you perspective, depth.

“And it shows in some of the younger songwriters’ music. You can hear it, there’s nothing but pop influences, the feeling and commitment are in danger of not being there. You’re not necessarily inclined to believe what’s being said—which is not to say that if you listen to Dock Boggs, everybody’s going to believe what you say, but you can feel it when somebody knows their music, and is drawing on something larger than the last five years.

“I’m in it for the long haul, and I think if I hadn’t had that attitude in the very beginning, I might have gotten out. I mean, I have nothing against making some money, and I don’t mind the attention when I get it, but that’s not the goal. There are some people whose goal is to be a star, and that’s an odd goal, I think. My goal has always been to write well, to have the next song be better than the last one.”

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Comments (5)

I first met Bill back at Plymouth when he was in a jug band. Later in life I found his music and have enjoyed it since. whenever He performed near me I caught the show and found that he was still that down to earth person from my youth. Just found out about his death. I’ll miss him and his performances. He truely lived the life he was meant to.

Thanks for the gentle tribute to a gentle man. I just learned of his passing and was stunned. I guess the only vengeance I’ll have will be the sweet pleasure of playing his work for those who never knew.

I’m just sitting here reading this stuff about my brother and reflecing on a very tough 2011 for my family. Everything that is written here is so complimentary to Bill. It makes me feel very proud and happy to see that he was loved and admired so much. Thanks to you all.–Tom Morrissey

I first heard Bill play at the Ottawa folk festival. I was sitting to far back to see him. He was funny in a quiet sort of way. He made fun of Ottawa. He talked about the movie, The Red Planet Mars, he had watched in his hotel room the night before. He made you feel like you were sitting across the table from him.

But the thing I will never forget is the dead silence, the way the world stopped when he played. I was listening to songs I had never heard before and they had my complete attention. The final song he sang was Birches. When he was done he said nothing and walked off the stage. The applause would not die down. I think the MC was worried that it would never stop.

I had been studying jazz guitar, sight reading, and picking technique for two years at the time. It was not long after that day that I put the pick down. Now when I try to use it it doesn’t feel natural.

Bill changed the way I play the guitar. He changed the way I listen to music. Even those of his songs that are flawed leave you in awe of what was almost acomplished. He was brilliant. I would give anything to be able to create that “Ï’m just kind of sort of doing this” sound that he had.

I hope that he has a great life there in heaven, better than the bible said.

I first saw Bill at the Iron Horse in Northampton MA in 1982, at a show where he “passed the hat” for his pay. The full evening was recorded. The next time I saw him, a short time later, I asked him if he would allow me to broadcast the whole event in a 3 hour radio show. He was very modest, but very pleased. He could not believe that anyone would broadcast his music for 3 hours when he didn’t even have a record. We did it. I’m not sure I can easily find the tape, though it is not lost.

I was so happy to see his career develop. He was extremely funny and totally spontaneous in his humor. It is so sad to learn of his passing.